American isn't as easy as it sounds says Laurie
Hugh Laurie, the British actor who won a Golden Globe for his role on US TV medical drama House, says speaking like an American isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“I haven’t identified a single word that is pronounced the same in America as it is in England,” the 47-year-old actor told Entertainment Weekly magazine. “And having to constantly listen to yourself and check your accent makes it harder to immerse yourself in the scene.
“It’s as if you’re playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon. I moan about it a lot.”
Laurie plays Dr Gregory House, the sardonic doctor who heads a medical team specialising in the diagnosis of rare disorders at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
House, whose leg has been crippled by a blood clot, walks with a cane, pops painkillers and has a perpetual stubble. He doesn’t like wearing a white lab coat and he’s testy with his patients and staff. However, House is a brilliant diagnostician.
“I could see him very clearly in my head from the start,” Laurie tells the magazine. “I could hear him – the rhythm of his speech – and it was clear to me he was hiding behind the meanness and sarcasm.”
The third season of House premieres in the US on September 5.
